today I wrote on the voting rights activism going on in Massachusetts: lawmakers have proposed a proposed constitutional amendment to eradicate felony disenfranchisement, & organizers are devising bold ways to give an electoral voice to incarcerated people

"I don't see it as one piece of legislation," @BernieSanders tells @chrislhayes when asked what his first legislative priority would be. Says it'll be about minimum wage, M4A, climate change in the first 100 days

so, to be clear, Sanders wants to tackle Medicare-for-All and climate change in his first 100 days but is also hesitant to touch the filibuster?
as I said when Gillibrand & Booker made similar comments, it matters whether substantive parts of platform match the procedural ones.

≈5 million voting-age citizens are disenfranchised nationwide, the Dem Party wants to make voting rights a major issue in 2020, & yet it's a struggle to get so much as a SINGLE Democratic-run chamber (let alone another) to adopt legislation abolishing felony disenfranchisement.

Breaking news: The North Carolina board of elections called for a new election in North Carolina's 9th congressional district after examining evidence of absentee ballot fraud on behalf of GOP candidate. The vote was unanimous.

Debates on criminal justice can be hard to follow since much of the stakes & action is at the state level.
Here's a new page (& interactive map!) to track some legislative developments on criminal justice reform, from the death penalty to youth justice: https://www.appealpolitics.org/legislative-round-up/ …

Debates on criminal justice can be hard to follow since much of the stakes & action is at the state level.
Here's a new page (& interactive map!) to track some legislative developments on criminal justice reform, from the death penalty to youth justice:

Mitch McConnell apparently now dictates how election reforms get discussed. But what's a historical 'power grab' is Kentucky's exceptionally harsh disenfranchisement rules. What mocks democracy is that nearly 10% of KYians, & more than 25% of black KYians, are disenfranchised.

Honolulu DA Keith Kaneshiro may end up in federal prison due to a federal corruption probe.
He also converted a DV shelter into a Victims’ Jail, has fought for more prisons in Hawaii for decades.
New from me:

Too often Mayors evade responsibility for the policies of the police chief they appoint. In Baltimore, police said it will keep arresting people for pot even after prosecutor said she'll stop charging. Group asking mayor to call that out, end pot arrests:

The escalation in the hotness of 2020 takes this week, far too much. It's February 2019. There's a ton else happening, and a ton happening right now, with which to care about the goals & principles for which these incessant takes claim to care about the presidential primaries.

My mom works with a group that tries to register people at the wake county prisons if they haven’t yet been convicted of felonies. She says meeting with the new sheriff’s staff compared to the old one was like night and day. New sheriff promises to work constructively with them.

North Carolina's biggest counties elected a wave of new sheriffs in November, and it's lead to dramatic restrictions on how local law enforcement cooperate with ICE.
ICE responded with raids, & many other local officials (here, those in Mecklenburg) have backed the new sheriffs.

The list is growing! #AVR is a common-sense election reform that increases access for eligible voters, while saving both time and money for states. It's being passed in both red states and blue. We can't wait to see this list grow even longer!

Oh this quote... A KY law passed in 2016 enabled people convicted of some low-level felonies to apply for expungement (and in so doing regain voting rights). But they must pay a prohibitive $500 fee, one of the country’s highest expungement fees & also a de facto poll tax. https://twitter.com/joesonka/status/1098052674984001537 …

The majority in Timbs held that the due process guarantees of the 14th Amendment compelled the incorporation of the Excessive Fines Clause.
Thomas says the "privileges and immunities" clause of the 14th Amendment should be used to apply the provision to the states.